The Best in Winter Fly Fishing

The Frying Pan River provides some of the best in Winter Fly Fishing. The Ruedi dam tailwater maintains a flow all winter which enables midge hatches to occur even on the darkest days at the depths of Winter.

The attraction of the lower Frying Pan for Winter fly fishing is the relatively easy access from a paved cleared road into the access road which is maintained by Pitkin County.

On the rare occurrence of heavy overnight snows which block the road, it is necessary to walk in. But that actually affords some of the best winter fly fishing as few are prepared to make the modest trek in to the flats.

For Winter Fly fishing, there is either great nymphing or great dry fly fishing. The nypmph is generally with midge larva or emergers. Whereas the dry fly fishing is with floating emerger patterns or dries. The nymphing lasts longer during the day with the dry fly action persisting as long as the adults are coming off. The great attraction of winter fly fishing with midge dries is the tiny sizes the naturals can get down to. It is not unusual to see naturals smaller than #32 so fishing with such small flies and light tippet such as 8x, 9x or even 10x can be a rewarding challenge.

The great attraction of the Frying Pan flats is that there is plenty of room to play and land large fish even on the lightest tippet.

No kidding. These are the fish that can be taken on the Pan in Winter. Go to our photo section for and have a look at the winter photos, or alternatively the December, January and February photos over the recent years for some more examples.

So if you want to experience winter fly fishing at its best we have it here.

And if you want a guided trip to our waters on both the Frying Pan and the San Juan see our winter trip details.